Probably the biggest puzzle in my family tree for me right now comes from a visa affidavit I have for some of my family trying to immigrate to the US from Vienna in 1938. A Herbert Blumberg from Chicago signed the affidavit for my family, with correct birthdates and bithplaces, labeling them "cousins." How he could be a cousin has stumped me. I looked into his family history and contacted a great nephew of his or some such who is doing genealogy on his family, and this person was also baffled. I guess the details don't matter so much; I can easily assume that there are just random 3rd cousins or whatever that I might not ever be able to trace, except the big issue for me is that the Blumbergs came from what is now northeastern Poland (Bielsk/Bransk), with in-laws from Lithuania and other areas pretty far north, and my family came from what is now sort of the middle and south of western Ukraine (Busk and Snyatyn) with in-laws from surrounding areas too. It's sooo far. I don't know how they ever connected.
My question is if it was common to have associates (or strangers) lie on visa affidavits. My family were Jews in Austria, and understandably they wanted to get out of there. But I haven't really figured out a way they could just be friends or colleagues either. As far as I know, my family didn't have any connections to Chicago at all. Herbert Blumberg was from New York originally and had family there, and there were a few branches of my family there are well, but I haven't been able to connect any Blumberg or Blumberg in-laws to any of my family or their in-laws there either. I found as many addresses as I could and no one has ever shared a home address or an employer's address. My family was living in Vienna at the time, but I haven't found any connections on the Blumberg side to Vienna. I asked my grandfather (one of the people the affidavit was for) about Herbert Blumberg, and he had never even heard of the person, so it doesn't seem like he was much of a close family friend.
So could some random person have signed this affidavit? Were there organizations that connected strangers in order to get affidavits to help people get visas or anything like that? I'm sure there were ways to get fake documents etc., but none of the information in the visa is fake, except possibly that they are "cousins." Is that even a necessary step? Couldn't a non-family member sign an affidavit? The USHMM says that close relatives were "preferred," but I don't know if that was strong enough to cause people to lie about it.
Any light that can be shed upon this would be immensely helpful, thanks.